Basilicata’s Ionian coast

A leisurely thirty-minute drive from Matera, Basilicata’s Ionian coast from Metaponto to Policoro consists of a mountainous interior backing onto a seaboard punctuated only by holiday resorts, a plethora of campsites – overflowing in the summer months – and some notable historical sites. Of these, the most significant are connected with the periods of Greek occupation, the most recent of which was that of the Byzantines who administered the area on and off for five hundred years.